Conventional coating applicators of this type include relatively large tools called mortarboards or hawks and smaller tools called trowels. In the hands of a skilled workman such tools are satisfactory for making uniform coatings of limited thickness, e.g. in the form of a plaster layer on an internal or external building wall which is to be covered by an outer finishing layer.
Some coating materials available today for protective and/or decorative purposes can be deposited on a surface as a relatively thick layer which can subsequently be adorned by tracings made therein, before complete hardening, with the aid of simple utensils such as a blade or an indented roller. The application of such heavy coatings to a substrate with the aid of conventional tools requires, however, great care if the thickness of the layer is to be reasonably uniform.